Autistic Children Blog

I’ve started a new project which I’m very excited about. As my regular readers would know I’m not adverse to a bit of fame here and there! One of my readers and I have become friends over the last five years, via emails to start with and now face to face. We decided that it would be great to get more information out there to the big wide world on our wonderful kids and what people could do when getting a diagnosis. I know from my experience that there wasn’t much information when Beth was diagnosed, lots of things I found out about was from me ringing around and searching for what I thought we needed. I know there’s a lot more now, due to more community awareness and more kids being diagnosed, but there are still people out there who haven’t been told much. We wanted to share our experiences, whether it be on current topics in the media or on toileting issues or food intolerances. Let’s face it, we’ll never run out of subjects. And I’ll never run out of words!

Anyway, for those of you interested, our You Tube channel is here. JAS CHAT . This stands for Jo and Sarah’s Crazy, Honest Autism Talk. And our facebook page is here. This will keep you updated as to when we put up new episodes. If you’re lucky we might even have Beth guest starring, a bit like the blog’s Beth funnies. I thought we could have an ask Beth segment where people could write in and ask her Disney trivia questions. She’d love that!

Beth is going well. She’s gone off to school today saying that her throat is sore. I’m not sure why she hates going to school so much, she does fun things. Even this morning, she tried to bung it on and I told her that she’s only got one day left this week, that tomorrow is the weekend, that she had a good day planned. She smiled and admitted, she has cooking and girls club which she enjoys, it’s almost like she still has to pretend to be sick though! Her school report was very honest, reflecting that she knows how to work but she chooses what she wants to do. So I don’t think she’ll do media studies again next year. She loves watching the movies but can’t be fagged doing the reports on them!

Due to me not being able to drive, the kids have been very adaptable and have been getting lifts from various people. I am very lucky that my friend’s son also goes to Beth’s school, and they live close to Bridie’s school, so they pick Beth up with their son and drop her back to the primary school which is means I just have to get one lift for my girls. It’s been wonderful and very convenient! Paul drops both girls off in the morning (Bill walks) and they get brought home, by friends, by a teacher (also a friend), by family, we’ve been incredibly lucky with our support. One day my friend’s son came home after cooking gingerbread men, and he gave his mum the head of one, saying that was all she could have. Beth came home a few days later with her gingerbread man and gave me the head too, explaining that if that’s all that Bree got then that’s all that I would get too!

To add in to the complication of transport, Beth now goes part of the way on a bus. We drop her in the mornings at 8.20am, she catches that bus to school, then she gets dropped back at the bus stop at 3.20pm, so it all fits in quite well with Bridie’s school. We can drop Bridie second in the mornings instead, meaning that I can go to assembly again, something I’ve really missed doing as I always have to drop Beth. The bus drops off closer to Bridie’s school so it’s not such a long drive, and not such a time consuming one either. I was leaving just after 2pm to do pickup, now it will be just before 3pm. And I’ll be home before 9am in the mornings after dropoff. Actually, I quite like the way it is now, I rather like not driving! We decided that Beth could leave her tablet at home rather than taking it with her and playing on it in the car. We were a bit worried about the bus side of it. Now she chats away in the car about her day and tells me about the drive when she gets home. She is rather taken with my friend’s oldest son Naarai and excitedly told me that he drove her last week in their Jeep. Might have something to do with the Jeep ad on the telly at the moment.